HumbleChief

Done and defeated.

The ability to place a niche in one click with its own dialog box so you could define its depth and shape as well as width and height. 

 

DJP

+1 to that David. I see 'how to create niche' threads all the time.

Thanks Graeme but I get pretty much what you have with all the different layer colors with no way I can find to change them except choose item, expand block, choose color, next-next for many many different elements.

Like each text item is a block of some kind in Rich Text. Select block, unblock, select text, open RT dbx, select text, change to black - for each text item? Is that really how it's done?

When looking at the plan you posted I get the following - screen shot. It still has many many elements that are different colors but if I 'select all' they can't be changed so it seems they have to each be chosen, exploded, color changed rearranged etc.? Plus there are white text elements off the screen as well. No way to change all at once? Could have sworn I was OK at this but this one has me flumoxed.

What a horrible feeling. Cannot import this DWG in a readable fashion to save my life. Tried every option, every setting, just get all the great ACAD colors and wonderful jumbled layers. Opened in Draft Sight - even more lost. What do you do when faced with such things? Do you all have to know a little bit of ACAD to succeed? Lost.

Is there a quick Draft Sight or ACAD tutorial I might look at?

Or use a pass through with a poly line solid for the backing.

Or use Chief's method for a niche as below.

http://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-01255/

In X6 each Layout box has an Annotation Set associated with it. If you want to locate boxes in the same location on each page you can copy and paste/hold position each layout box from page to page then change the associated Anno Set for each box. Select the Layout box and 'Open Object' (not double click) and you'll see the Anno Set(s) (and reference sets) you can associate with that box.

I thought I had a grip on importing DWG's but I have a truss layout that comes in every color but black unless I explode every block and re-color every line. There must be an easier method.

Here's the DWG file but when I import I get all the crazy colors but no way I can find to change everything to black.

Any help greatly appreciated.

VALDES DWG TRUSS LAYOUT.zip

When you try again make sure you're in the 3D view.

Alan,

Did you see the awnings in the SSA library area? Not sure it would work for you but might be worth a look.

You can also create your own symbol in Chief if you want to brush up on another skill.

In a pinch, and not recommended unless you need it for a presentation that's due, you can drag the walls up or down in 3D to cover those open spots. Fixes nothing but the visual and always better to get to the cause, I just can't find the cause.

For some reason the floor framing is framing to the outside wall on the walls where the floor plaforms are open. Don't know why.

Check your roof framing defaults?

I've NEVER used that dbx to set wall finishes and took a long time to even find it. Learn something every day.

Check out this vid:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ59vHSFfZA

 

Xeon vs I7 explained.

Thanks

Ok, I'll quit being a smartypants and get serious.  Yes, both Xeon and i7 are faster; depends on the task and software used.  Is CA the only software in your workflow?  Or, are there Autodesk products in the mix?  Lumion?  Etc., etc.

 

Next is your budget.  >$15K then it's a dual Xeon and fully Autodesk compliant.  <$5K then it's an upper end gamer rig.  <$2K then an upper end business computer or midline gamer rig with a good graphics card--or a gamer laptop.

 

Everything boils down to what's your realistic budget.

 

@ $2500 your pushing it for a new technology desktop.  Does your budget include a monitor, keyboard and mouse?  A service contract?  Give me details.

 

jon

Great info Jon, but I think $2500 should buy you a great machine for using Chief and that machine should last a couple 3 years.

Look in the 'Room Specification' dbx - change to drywall - fixed. Do it for each room. Don't know where that came from.

I could not figure out the problem. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed but this stuff makes me nuts. I drew a couple interior walls through the exterior walls and they remained drywall until they crossed the exterior walls.

Thanks for the suggestion to turn them off & just work in CAD (I think the CAD sucks BTW).

I've never used AutoCAD but I tried it the other day and all I can tell you is that the CAD really sucks in that program. There's too much to learn and I already know one way to do things. [/sarcasm]

Am I really going to be the first person to suggest you post the plan? Just sayin'.

Also Bob those upper walls with the BB are attic walls. You can delete them and they'll rebuild. Not sure about the BB next to the door.

A total rework of the painfully slow 'Undo' command.

That has always bugged me. +1

I would like to see many more options for elevation drawings especially more line weight control, shadows, colors, transparencies etc.

Here's a similar system to the Falcon if you were to build it yourself although I wouldn't build with only 1 SSD drive nor would I build with a 500W power supply.

To the OP Debra,

I've included a chart to compare your current CPU to the newest out there and you can see how far back in technology/speed your current processor is. http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Phenom+9950+Quad-Core translation - you really need a new system. Your current motherboard will not support a fast enough processor to really bother with up-grading and the 9800 GTX video cards are dinosaurs as well.

The difference between Xeon processors and the current i7's is simply the amount of data each can move (in gigaflops). Here's another chart http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html you can see the Xeons kill the i7's and ideally you'd get a couple of high end Xeons in a server motherboard but the cost would kill.

I've got a couple low end Xeons in my system that was built by a guy that had them on hand for pretty cheap (system was $2500 complete and the 2 Xeons overclocked moved more data that the then current higher end i7's) I can upgrade the processors to faster Xeons but again the cost will not justify it so I consider myself lucky to get a decent deal on a couple of fast processors and will use this system till it ages past its usefulness. http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+L5640+%40+2.27GHz&id=1263

Here's another part of the web pages from above. http://www.harddrivebenchmark.net/

The rules for Chief are very simple. Buy the fastest CPU you can afford. The CPU chews through RayTracing and general system speed. If you don't know which is fastest check the charts (for everything).

Same for video cards. The video card handles the 3D rendering chores. Buy the fastest GAMING Video card you can afford. Stay away from the Quadro CAD cards as the bang for buck is simply not there for the way Chief handles graphics. Nvidia seems to be the brand of choice. Check charts.

Memory, simple again, get the most, fastest you can afford. I personally would get less, faster memory than more slower memory. 8 GB min 16 GB max as Chief really won't use much more.

Hard drive(s) Single SSD and single disc HDD.

Power supply HAS to be big enough to power your goodies. 1000 W minimum.

Cooling. If you don't know, buy a system from someone who does.

Simple.

What do you think of this? $2k

https://www.digitalstormonline.com/configurator.asp?id=1108756

Those are great spec's for a great system. Maybe a little more RAM but that's all and that system is ready to go.

You could create a printing Anno Set, and a working Anno Set, but I don't think there's a way to set up individual layers to print/not print. That would be a great feature IMO.